A Key Twitter Backer Just Ripped The Lid Off Its Executive Turmoil

Twitter's investors fired cofounders Jack Dorsey and Ev Williams as CEO in a messy,
unfair fashion, according to Chris Sacca, an early advisor and
investor who now runs a fund devoted to private trades of
Twitter shares.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter's first CEO, who now serves as its executive
chairman, was fired in 2008. The reasons insiders give vary, but
they center around Dorsey's inability to manage Twitter's
frequent outages; botched communication with the board about a
buyout offer Twitter got from Facebook; and Williams's increasing interest in
running the fast-growing company as it was starting to take off.

“I don’t think the way Jack was fired was fair,” Sacca said in
the interview, a
video of which is available on PandoDaily. “I was there. I
was an advisor to the company. I was consulted on it. And the
original plan was to send him on his way."*

Sacca said that Dick Costolo, a former Google executive who was also an investor and
advisor to the company, insisted that Dorsey maintain the title
of chairman and be well-compensated.

Sacca said Costolo wanted to make sure Dorsey didn't "feel
screwed" in the process. It's odd that Costolo had so
much authority at Twitter back then.

Costolo went on to become COO of Twitter. In 2010, he was
promoted to CEO. Williams took on a role overseeing Twitter's
product. And
Dorsey quietly returned to the company, moonlighting at
Twitter while also running Square, the payments startup he had cofounded
in exile.

In part because of Dorsey's return, Williams never actually
returned to an active role at Twitter. In March 2011, Twitter
acknowledged Dorsey's return.

Williams was never formally fired, but he stopped showing up to
work.

“The way shit went down around Ev … ultimately Ev just chose to
leave,” Sacca said.

Williams retained his seat on the board and is the largest
investor in Twitter, which was most recently valued at more than
$8 billion in its latest private financing.

Twitter's cofounders rarely discuss their firings. In a rare
interview, Dorsey
told Vanity Fair last year that his removal as CEO was like
"getting punched in the stomach."

More recently, Dorsey and Williams have taken steps toward
reconciliation. Over the summer, they
dined together in San Francisco.

And these days, Dorsey spends considerably less time at Twitter,
leaving the company solidly in Costolo's hands.

The company's third cofounder, Biz Stone, is now running a startup incubator
with Williams.

The company has a boilerplate statement it repeats when asked
about its founders' ousters:

Twitter’s three co-founders—Ev Williams, Biz Stone, and
Jack—have unselfishly played whatever role was most needed
at the time to nurture the company and help the product
reach its full potential.

We've invited Twitter to update that statement in light of
Sacca's comments.

NOTE:In the original version of this post,
we inferred that Sacca had said that Ev Williams and Twitter's
other board members were behind the plan to oust Jack Dorsey.
Sacca did not specify this. We apologize for the mistake.